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Excellent, Without a doubt!!

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

LOST SOULS is another religious thriller that came out at the turn of the millennium. There were loads of these made with titles such as BLESS THE CHILD, END OF DAYS, and STIGMATA, and truth be told not many of them are very good. As a rule they've dated quite badly since release like a lot of early 2000s films and most aren't worth bothering going back and watching, and I'm afraid to say that LOST SOULS is such a film. It's not totally bad but it's not very interesting either.The main character in the movie is played by British actor Ben Chaplin who becomes involved with some exorcists and weird characters who follow him around. He soon learns that he's part of an age-old prophecy which is supposedly about to come true but being an atheist he's having none of it. A fine-looking Winona Ryder is the obsessive who follows him trying to convince him that the prophecy is indeed real.For a horror film this is surprisingly limited in scope. There are a few clichéd scare sequences and various weird characters running amok. At least they don't go through all the old possession routines which is usual for a film like this. The problem with LOST SOULS is that it's such a boring production. The Catholic characters are lifeless and dull and actors like John Hurt fail to bring them to life. The writing is very ordinary and even shocking events fail to seem out of the ordinary. Director Janusz Kaminski has done some good work as cinematographer but he has little aptitude for directing as evinced here.

A group of Catholics go to a mental institution to perform exorcism in the murderer George Viznik (Brad Greenquist). Father Lareaux (John Hurt), Deacon John Townsend (Elias Koteas), Father Frank Page (Brian Reddy) and the teacher Maya Larkin (Winona Ryder), who was possessed and exorcised in the past, unsuccessfully try to exorcise the man and Father Lareaux is deeply affected and falls into a coma. Maya brings the Viznik's coded writings and after deciphering it, she concludes that the writer Peter Kelson (Ben Chaplin) might be the Antichrist to be incarnated by Satan. She seeks him out but the atheist Peter, who has been raised by his uncle Father James (Philip Baker Hall), does not believe in her. But when strange things happen to him, Peter meets Maya and they investigate together the chance to save his soul.The stylish "Lost Souls" is one of the most underrated horror films ever. The cinematography is top-notch; the excellent camera work explores unusual angle; the cast is magnificent; and the film has not aged after sixteen years. The story keeps the escalating tension in the psychological style of the classic "Rosemary's Baby", without the need of violence and gore. Unfortunately, Catholic values, such as the cross and holy water against vampires or the priest winning the evil in exorcisms, have been forgotten by an industry where this religion does not prevail. Why shall the evil always win in movies? My vote is eight.Title (Brazil): "Dominação" ("Domination")

How many of these crappy turn-of-the-millennia thrillers are there? From Y2K to the End of Days to even more obscure takes, there's just a slew of films that came out around 2000 built around the idea of humanity's time running out. Most of them stink out loud, but Lost Souls may be the worst of the bunch to come out of a major studio. This thing is overwrought, unclear, repetitious and has some of the worst pacing of any movie you'll ever see.To start with, you have to get about 30 minutes into the film before you get any solid idea of what and who it's about. I don't mean there's some mystery keeping the viewer in suspense. I mean you spend the first half hour staring blankly at the screen and wondering "Who are these people? Why are they doing that? Okay, why am I looking at this guy now? Is he a reporter or some kind of lawyer? Wait, he's a writer? Now why are we back with those other people? Is he the main character? Is she the main character? What the hell am I watching?"Then the middle part of Lost Souls tells you the same thing over and over and over again, getting more and more explicit each time but expecting you to be surprised every time it tells you the same thing. Imagine if Citizen Kane had constantly told the audience the secret of Rosebud, but kept going on as if it was still an unanswered question. That's what the middle of Lost Souls is like, except executed with 1/1000th the talent and skill.That brings us to the ending and a case of narrative whiplash. The first three-quarters of this film is languidly paced, dawdling along before suddenly going from 0 to stupid in 8.67 seconds. It's as if they started out with a 350 page script and shot the first 80 pages before it occurred to anyone that they were making a 6 hour long movie, then they tried to cram everything everything into just more 30 pages. It goes from feeling like a bad episode of Masterpiece Theatre to a worse episode of Pokemon.What is Lost Souls about? Well, there's this troubled young woman (Winona Ryder) trying to stop this guy (Ben Chaplin) from becoming the wussiest Antichrist in cinema history. The tagline for the movie poster should have been "The Omen…for Dummies." Some stuff happens but there's very little violence, no nudity, only a smattering of bad language and Ryder and Chaplin appear to be engaged in some sort of acting contest to see who can come up with the most different ways of looking forlorn.The only possible value this garbage could have is as more evidence that Winona Ryder is one of the most beautiful women of all time. It's gone amazingly unnoticed because she never became a Julia Roberts-type movie star or sought out constant media attention, but Ryder is truly incredible to look at. Actresses as a profession are more attractive than average, but even most actresses have a beauty peak. With some it's early, with others it's late, but there will generally be a time when an actresses' physical appearance is at its zenith and she doesn't look as good either before or after that period. Ryder's not like that. She hasn't had a beauty peak. She's been at a beauty plateau for over 20 years, starting out as a phenomenally cute young woman and maintaining that level of visual appeal all the way to the point where she's now getting to be almost old enough to play the mother of one of her earlier roles.Unfortunately, as great as Ryder looks, she's not enough on her own to make Lost Souls worth watching. You'd be better off acting out the book of Revelations with finger puppets.

Maya Larkin is the assistant of an exorcist priest. One day, she deciphers what she thinks might be a code in the revelations of one of the possessed victim she interacts with. A code that may lead to unveiling the identity of the man about to become the anti-Christ.I remember seeing this movie at the time it came out and being terribly disappointed and frustrated because there were flashes of brilliance beneath all the crap. The perspective of seeing the first movie directed by one of the greatest cinematographer of our time, Janusz Kaminski, was enticing for any film buff. Furthermore, it was around the turn of the new millennium and so a lot of horror and occult movie fans were waiting to see a great film tackling those genres. It just seemed... topical. Unfortunately, we were treated to several attempt who all flopped and Lost Souls was one of the worst tries.At the heart of every movie is a story and here, the writers have done an awful job. A bunch of amateurs wouldn't screw up this bad. Who opens up a movie with a fictional quote from the bible? What kind of awful writer can't come up with genuine material from such a huge book? But here, the writer have come up with an awful story that goes like this. Satan is going to possess a man (born of incest) on his 33rd birthday. Wow. The central character in the story is Maya Larkin, played by Winona Ryder. I was never a big fan of Ryder but recognize her appeal as a generation X icon. But this role probably was the final nail to her declining A-list status. Larkin is a poorly written character that doesn't make any sense. She doesn't act like a real person nor does her presence around people of the church feels remotely believable. I think Ryder could have done better here but certainly, she started at a disadvantage due to writing. Opposite Larkin is Peter Kelson, a writer who specializes in demystifying the mind of serial killers. This secondary character is less sketchy and comes alive thanks to actor Ben Chaplin. At the time the movie was shot, Chaplin was an unknown actor. This was on the heels of his role in the acclaimed Thin Red Line. I must say that Chaplin's performance is one of the few redeeming qualities of this movie. He is always believable and his acting in the final scene is what makes Lost Souls still memorable to this day. Surrounding these two characters are a bunch of nonsensical characters who act pretty like pawns. Most are played by crappy actors although we get two amazing veterans as well in key roles. Philip Baker Hall and John Hurt are wonderful actors but here, they had nothing to work with. Their characters are sketchy, incongruity abounds and it looks like they mailed their performances. Aside from Chaplin's performance, the other saving grace of this film is the cinematography but here, we have a mixed bag. Many scenes of exteriors and interiors have a jaw-dropping beauty and ethereal quality to them. This movie, it must be said, has aged very well in this respect. There's a timeless quality to the cinematography that is certainly due to director Janusz Kaminski. One of the main person responsible for the look of several Spielberg movies, among others. Many scenes are delightful and atmospheric. However, this is a mixed bag. Every scene where tension should be present pretty much flops. For instance, all the exorcism scenes are awful. And seem to come straight from a FOX occult show like the X-Files, using black and white image and devoid of absolutely any impact. You never feel scared. Worse, it doesn't even feel tensed. As a viewer, you just sit there and remotely watch was is happening. Kaminski is also totally unable to film kinetic scenes. Any scene where a car bumps into something, or people draw knives or guns is sketchy, unfinished, amateurish and devoid of any life. Much has been said of "plot twists" within the film. You can read about those in the Lost Souls forum on IMDb but really, none of the theories hold of to any scrutiny. What we have here is not ambiguous writing with possible twists but just plain bad writing. The final scene impacted me as a viewer but can't save a movie that has a nonsensical plot that isn't even remotely based on genuine religious history. It's just made up stuff by awful writers, turned into a movie y a first time director who was way over his head. It's still heartbreaking because there are things Janusz Kaminski obviously excels at but the overall direction of a film was too much at this point. Maybe a more solid script would have helped him. Since then, Kaminski has been back to his cinematographer gig alongside Spielberg. He never directed a movie again but here we are, ten years later and it appears his next directorial effort is in production. Hopefully he learned from the previous experience!Avoid Lost Souls at all costs, or skip to the final scene.